RateYourSeats.com needs your sports photos

The next time you're at a sporting event, Keith Hanson could use your help.

He's the founder and CEO of Chicago-based startup RateYourSeats.com, which allows ticket buyers to read seat reviews and see pictures from a seat's view in a stadium or arena.

It's a simple concept: Build the most robust collection of seat viewpoints on the web with as many pictures from games and events as possible and partner with ticket brokers as a resource for prospective buyers — think Yelp.com, except more photocentric.

"I thought it'd be nice if there were some transparency when fans are purchasing tickets," Mr. Hanson said of the site, which he launched in June 2010 as a "moonlighting" project (he was while working as an analyst at Deerfield-based Takeda Pharmaceuticals) after a frustrating experience watching a White Sox game from a club-level seat with a railing blocking his view.

To date, RateYourSeats.com has accrued thousands of fan reviews and about 25,000 seat photos from about 330 venues, covering all 122 venues in the four major sports (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL), almost 150 college sports sites and dozens of concert venues.

Based on user ratings and pictures, RateYourSeats recommends certain tickets to shoppers and, if they click through and purchase them (through a partner site), the company earns a referral fee.

About three-quarters of the ticket listings have photos to go with them — either from the exact seat or from the same section.

Almost half so far have come from SeatData.com, a site with outdated seat photos, and most of the rest have been submitted by fans, with about 1,000 taken by RateYourSeats employees.

But after spending lots of time and money showing up at various games as soon as doors open to roam the venue and snap photos from different seats, Mr. Hanson is aiming to ramp up the crowdsourcing with the recently launched RateYourSeats iPhone app to boost its photo library.

"On any given night there are three to four million fans in seats ready to take pictures," he said, which is why he built the app, allowing users to easily upload pictures of their view at a game or show.

BUILDING A PHOTO LIBRARY

Mr. Hanson offers cash-prize incentives for people to submit photos and enlists promotional teams at various stadiums to spread the word during tailgates.

So far, it has done well with venues in Chicago, Atlanta and San Francisco, though it's struggling in the northeast.

"We get plenty of people buying from New York and Boston, but they're not sharing photos or rating their seats," said Mr. Hanson, a Batavia native who graduated from Iowa State University in 2007, where he studied statistics.

The site, which Mr. Hanson says was bootstrapped on his own dime, turned a profit early on because his costs are so low. The bulk of expenses comes from maintaining servers, promotions and small monthly rent at Chicago tech incubator 1871. He and his business partner are the only full-time employees.

Mr. Hanson would not disclose this site's commission rates but said the total dollar amount of tickets sold through the site over the past year is "well into the seven figures" and that it receives about 250,000 unique monthly visitors a month.

After building the photo inventory, Mr. Hanson plans to expand his reach into theater, Nascar, soccer and more concert venues. Most buildings have several different setups, such as United Center, which hosts concerts, the circus and other shows in addition to the Chicago Blackhawks and Bulls.

The end game for the company may be selling out to a major ticket vendor or possibly getting its hands on its own ticket inventory to sell, but its current focus is making sure the site offers fans enough value to become repeat customers.

"There are a multitude of companies aggregating tickets just like us," he said. "Our competitive advantage is creating the infrastructure to receive and display information."